


Blood Between Us

by disgruntled_owl



Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Horror of Dracula (1958)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Blood Drinking, F/M, Jealousy, Kissing, M/M, Manual stimulation, Masturbation, Vampires, Voyeurism, hammer horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 20:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgruntled_owl/pseuds/disgruntled_owl
Summary: Freshly turned, Jonathan Harker has surrendered his unlife to Dracula, but the Count has not forgotten the librarian’s attempt to destroy him. Dracula expels Harker from the safety of Klausenberg and plumbs Harker’s past for another way to make him suffer. In Lucy’s bedchamber in Holmwood Hall, Harker discovers a new, sensual form of punishment.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calliopes_pen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopes_pen/gifts).



“We will not remain at the castle.”

I had only half heard these words as I sucked at the blood-slick wrist of a peasant girl. Dracula had sated himself at her neck and left her on the floor before the hearth, where I drank up the dregs. At the sight of all that scarlet—saturating her collar, staining her fingertips—my past and future went blank. There was only blood, only now.

His decree rang louder later that night when he led me to the carriage house and gestured toward two open coffins half-filled with earth. Two coachmen huddled in the drafty doorway, their haggard faces devilish in the wriggling torchlight. Outside, a team of horses stomped and snorted, their furious black eyes gleaming in the dark.

The prospect of leaving chilled me. In these lands, Dracula prowled, seduced, and drank at his pleasure. He had not yet taught me to hunt human prey, and so I depended on the blood he claimed. His presence was a grim secret kept by the people of Klausenburg, as though they hoped to contain his evil with their silence and submission. In other territories, we would invite the fear-stoked animosity of strangers, if not the attention of men who hunted our kind.

“Why must we go?” I pleaded. “We are safe here. Should anyone come here, the two of us could-”

“You and I have business elsewhere, Jonathan Harker.”

I opened my mouth to protest. At this, his pupils shrank and his nostrils flared, and my words dissolved on my tongue.  He pointed to one of the coffins. Behind him, the approaching sunrise drained the blackness from the sky, turning it an ominous blue.

Under his stern gaze, I climbed inside and felt the loose earth surround me. Soil spread over my shoulders and pooled in the hollow of my throat. As the lid descended, a harrowing thought crossed my mind. What if Dracula had crafted this ruse to dispose of me, to abandon me to suffer undeath alone in a foreign land? I pressed against the lid to throw it off, but could not move it. Chains rattled as they slithered around the coffin, sealing my prison shut.

In this dust-choked darkness, I had no choice but to sleep while my coffin rolled on to the unknown. Over and over, my master’s saturnine face surfaced from the gloom of my dreams. Before he made me one of his kind—his purported punishment for my treachery—I spent sleepless nights picturing my stake spearing his chest, his face contorted in agony. But when death overtook my body, and bloodlust my soul, my loathing of Dracula metamorphosed into idolatry. In my reveries, I glorified his powerful shoulders and the regal line of his jaw. He had no need to compel me now—I would do anything he demanded, and what was left of my heart would sing at the prospect. This separation from him was painful, and I hoped that it would not last long.

I eventually woke to musty air and the echo of distant footsteps. The coffin lid had shifted such that a dim ray of light filtered through a crack and struck my face. For several moments I lay still and waited. Something skittered across the space beneath the coffin, and gusts of wind battered shutters nearby, but I heard no other sounds of human presence.

Emboldened by the silence, I pushed off the lid and raised myself up on one elbow. Boxes and barrels cluttered this expansive, dusty room. Crates stacked beyond the reach of the paltry lamplight formed ominous black pillars. Dracula's coffin was nowhere in sight.

Far across the storehouse, a set of large double doors shuddered in their frame. Sounds of spinning wheels, crunching gravel, and creaking wood seeped through the gap between them. I crept through the maze of boxes and peered through this crack, where I saw barking hounds bounding toward an approaching stagecoach. Constables bearing torches trotted behind them and shouted at the driver while a soldier appeared in the doorway of the cabin across the road. The ruthless point of his bayonet jutted from his silhouette as he marched toward the coach.

I sank against a stack of boxes, taking shallow breaths. Where was this place, and where was my master? Had someone ambushed us on our voyage and brought our bodies here? Had strangers opened his coffin, realized what he was, and destroyed him? I imagined the bayonet tip slick with blood.

Or, had Dracula imposed the punishment I feared and sent me away? I stroked the broken skin on my throat, the tissue puckering beneath the pressure of my fingers. Let it be that he has spurned me, I prayed, if it means he still exists. As long as he breathes, I can find my way back to him. My fingers fretted in the old motions of counting rosary beads—I clenched my fists until the urge left me. I will force myself to hunt and drink that I may survive the journey back, I thought. I’ll fall at his feet, I’ll beg for whatever regard he’ll deign to give me, even if it is cruelty. But please, don’t make me suffer an eternal parting.

As I brooded over Dracula’s fate, dirt trickled from my collar down into my shirt.  Shivering, I brushed my palm over the face of a crate, sweeping over grime and splinters until I struck a bare patch. I turned to see the name Karlstadt written in great black letters upon the wood panel. I staggered back, then spun about in search of a lantern. Finding one at the end of the row of shelves, I held it up to the towering wall of boxes before me. That forbidding name appeared on each one, flashing in the dank light like flecks of gold in the rivers of the Americas.

Karlstadt. Not a fortnight ago, I had trekked from here in search of Dracula. My mentor Van Helsing had schemed here, preparing to follow me and to lower his hammer onto the stake I held against Dracula’s chest. I had pictured Lucy waiting here for my return, warming the cushions of the divan as she watched for me through the window.

These foolish pretensions, these pitiful dreams, died the moment Dracula claimed me. So had these connections to my old life, or so I thought. But it seemed a cruel hand had guided me—or Dracula and I both—back to this place for a reckoning. Should it be Van Helsing’s hand, he whom I had forsaken to serve Dracula...At this possibility, my blood ran cold.

I passed the night in frenzy, throwing open every crate in search of my master’s body. I scoured the shelves for a log or manifest. If I could find his name, I might discover where he was headed— if I did not, I could cling to the supposition that he had never left Klausenburg. Outside, the hounds’ howls and the clatter of carriage wheels swelled and dissipated. At the sound of raised human voices, I bolted for the door, watching for the threat of a familiar face. When soldiers and porters entered the storehouse, I ducked into the shadows and, with fangs bared, waited for them to leave.

By the time the moon dipped behind the trees, I teetered on the edge of madness. Dawn would arrive soon. The reason I was here was still a mystery. I slunk back toward my coffin and braced myself on its edge. What traps awaited me if I dared leave this place to find Dracula? What would become of me if I stayed?

At that moment, the doors rattled and groaned behind me, then slammed shut. My blood stirred, a warm, familiar undercurrent flowing through me. I turned and found Dracula standing in the center of the room. A lamp swung listlessly above him, its beam catching the red glint in his eyes as it swept over his face.

“Master,” I gasped, nearly swooning with relief. “I thought we had lost each other.”

Without a word, he advanced towards me, each footstep like a clap of thunder. As he approached, I spotted flecks of dried blood on his lips. 

“Why have we come to Karlstadt, Master?” I went on.  “Why did you bring us here, where our enemies might find us, where we might be-”

“The remains of your life are here, are they not?”

“My life is over, Master,” I declared, “and all I am now belongs to you.”

“That is not enough."

My throat tightened. “I don’t understand.”

“You forget quickly, Harker. You deceived me so that you could enter my house. You murdered my consort, and you plotted to destroy me." I grimaced and looked away, hating these reminders of my sins against him. He drew nearer and I staggered backward, nearly tumbling over a pile of boxes. He grabbed my upper arm and pulled me in close.

"Your death is only a taste of what you will suffer." 

A familiar scent rose from his collar. I could not place where or when I had encountered it before, and dread welled up in my chest. 

Outside, birds began to chirp, heralding the approaching dawn. Dracula’s eyes narrowed, and he brushed past me and into the shadows beyond the feeble ring of lamplight. 

"Master, where are you going?" I pleaded. "Do not leave me here. Soldiers stalk this place at all hours. I'll be discovered." They'll take me from you, I thought but did not dare say.

"When I'm through with you, your dread of man will be nothing before your awe of me," he replied, and then vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

The last time I had seen the grand profile of Holmwood Hall, it had been through the golden veil of autumn. Lucy and I had eluded our chaperones: hawkish Arthur and his doting wife Mina. In this heady freedom I chased her along the stone path between the hedgerows in the back garden. As she ran, the hem of her skirt whisked up the fallen leaves. At the sound of my panting, she peeked back over her shoulder and laughed at me. We raced toward the brick wall that bordered the edge of the estate, its crenellations gilded by the rays of the setting sun.

The prospect of a moment alone with Lucy fueled my entire being. With a mighty stride, I was able to reach forward and grab her bare hand. The sensation of her warm palm against my own sent my heart racing. We paused near a secluded alcove in the wall, where only her exhalations broke the silence. Impudent strands of hair had wriggled free from her bun, and a carnal darkness bloomed in her eyes. She squeezed my hand and pulled it towards her; at that pressure, exhilaration swept over me. Without a word, I drove her toward the alcove until I had cornered her inside, lost in my shadow. I kissed her, gently at first, until my desire demanded more. She clutched the back of my head, pulling me in, her fingers winding through my curls. As we held each other, she pressed her belly and her hips against mine. My hand glided down her back and over the ridge of her corset, searching for her body beneath her skirts. I wondered how deep I might immerse myself in her, and how warm her depths might be.

She moaned, and at that sound, I sprang back. A wind swept through this space—branches creaked and an iron gate in the wall rattled. My passion curdled to trepidation. A broad golden sunbeam striped a path between the shrubs and glinted off the mansion’s window panes. In that lingering light, we could have been spotted by one of the servants, or worse, by Arthur. The abandon I had embraced moments ago now chilled me. I turned and lay back against the wall, and ran my hands across the rough, bracing surface of the brick.

Lucy sighed beside me, her disappointment palpable.  Still, she rested her head against my chest and stroked my breastbone, beneath which my heart pounded. I leaned in and kissed the top of her head. The bouquet emanating from her hair—lavender and musk—intoxicated me, but with a hard swallow, I restrained myself. “Come, dearest,” I whispered. “We must be getting back inside.”       

Now, Dracula ushered me through that same iron gate and led me into that same garden, which was cloaked in moonlight and the lush foliage of early summer.  Darkness hid the mansion, but through the gaps in the tree cover I could see ochre light in its windows.

From the moment Dracula and I left the customs house, I had dreaded what our destination in Karlstadt might be. When we arrived at Holmwood Hall, I realized that I had a hand in laying this snare. I had thoughtlessly revealed Lucy’s name the night I arrived at Castle Dracula—I had said it only once, but he had not forgotten it. Instead, he possessed an eerie familiarity with this place and moved through the gardens with a conqueror's stride. He only paused when we reached the edge of the hedgerow labyrinth, just before the lawn that bordered the back terrace. There he squeezed my wrist to hold me fast.

“My lord,” I whispered. “What are we doing here?”

“At this moment, we are here to wait.”

If Van Helsing, desperate to capture us, had conspired with the Holmwoods to set a trap, our trespassing could prove fatal. “Master, these people mean nothing to me,” I rasped, stepping forward to block his path. “I have forgotten them all. You may find more danger here than satisfaction. Please, let’s leave this place.”

“We will wait,” he repeated, clipping that final word with great force.  

Inside the mansion, black silhouettes glided past the windows. I fixed my gaze on them, once again alert for my betrothed’s guardians. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Dracula crane his neck toward a pair of French doors that led to the terrace. Gaslight bloomed behind them. He crept further along the hedge for a closer look, and I followed.

Through the glass panes I saw Lucy seated at a vanity table, facing away from us. There she plucked pins from her chignon—as she removed each one, a lock of her lustrous, copper-colored hair cascaded down her back. She gathered it off her neck and dreamily plaited it, revealing her shoulder blades. My vigilance wavered as my thoughts drifted from Van Helsing’s sepulchral stare to the lace sleeves of her negligee. Once she had fastened her braids with ribbons, she cast an expectant glance over her shoulder. Was she looking for some sign of me out in the dark, framed by the lilies and roses meant for our wedding?

She suddenly sprang to her feet, as though she had heard a call, and locked her interior door. She then crept back towards the terrace doors, where I could finally see her in full. I swallowed hard as I admired the swell of her bosom and the curves of her waist and hips, freed from the strictures of a corset. A pained expression crossed her face, and for the first time in many nights, I felt a pang of sorrow. Lay a black veil across your troubled brow, Lucy, I thought. Better for you to know I am gone than to wait in vain hope.

“She doesn't know why you left Karlstadt for Klausenburg, does she?” Dracula murmured.

Glimpses of my old life—stakes and crucifixes, midnight meetings and lies—flashed in my mind. “No, my Lord.”

“Nor does she know that you’ve died.” This he said with certainty.

The cruel note in his voice piqued me. “No, my Lord.”

Lucy swept aside one braid and stroked a patch of broken skin on her throat. I sensed a smile crossing my Master’s face.

The lights blinked out in the upstairs rooms. Dracula grabbed my upper arm. “You will follow me. She will not see you, and you will not speak a word to her.”

Releasing me, he walked to the edge of a pool of light that had formed on the terrace. The glass doors opened with a faint squeal. Dracula swept into the room, my trailing figure obscured by the swirl of his cape. As I entered, I caught whiffs of lavender and musk—the scents on my master’s collar.

Without looking in my direction, he gestured toward a dark corner beside the fireplace. From there, I could see the expanse of Lucy’s bed, territory I had long imagined while huddled in my own cold sheets. Lucy retreated to it and perched on its edge, her knuckles turning white as she clutched her coverlet. Dracula advanced, and his very magnetism seemed to compel her back onto the bed. His expression bore the feral intensity I saw the night he slammed the door of his crypt and condemned me to undeath.

Once he reached the footboard he stopped and stood motionless. At this, she grew frantic, her breast heaving like that of a trapped wren. At her distress, he merely smiled, his lip curling to reveal an ivory fang.

The charge in the air intensified as it does before a storm. Lucy’s lips trembled, but her gaze brimmed with the licentiousness that once stirred my heart. Unable to bear a moment more, she rose out of repose and mouthed the word “please.”

I held fast to the stone mantle as the scene unfolded. It should have been plain to me from the moment we arrived—he meant to punish me by claiming not only my life but my beloved. What Dracula, an apex predator, could not understand was the mind of a slave. My devotion to him pervaded my whole being. If he wished I would watch him devour her, even as jealousy writhed within me.

Dracula stepped forward and Lucy reclined into the pillows, her eager eyes shimmering. Still, he approached with the languor of a cat toying with a wounded bird. He leaned in to inspect her, as he had once inspected me, sniffing at her throat and tracing her jaw with his finger, pausing above his mark. He wove his fingers through her braids, parting them and spreading her hair over her shoulders. She arched her back and he turned his attention to the laces at her décolleté—these he ripped through with one swift stroke. Through the fresh tear in her gown, I could see the curve of her breast, crowned with a delicate, rosy nipple. 

Without a glance at me, Dracula closed in upon her, brushing the tip of his nose against her cheeks. With carefully calibrated pressure, he nipped at her lower lip and drew forth a drop of blood, as though to whet his appetite. I knew the moment she was about to experience—when his bite was inevitable and wonder overcame terror. I gritted my teeth and focused on a shadowy corner across the mantle. Jealousy surged through me again, but this time, it was too cloudy for me to trace its source. Was I incensed at Dracula’s hands on my intended, or did I fume that she received his touch instead of me? I should be satisfied that my master is pleased, I told myself as I shut my eyes. I want nothing more than his pleasure.

Then I heard the exquisite tearing of flesh. My eyes flew open, and I shivered at the display before me. Dracula sank his fangs into her throat and spread his cape over her like a great black wing. My gaze flitted from the white V of Lucy’s chest, tapering into the shadow beneath Dracula’s body, to his chiseled jaw and pulsing throat. It lingered at the abyss that opened between her lips, then shifted to his shoulders and back, which rocked as he drank. Indeed, the two of them appeared to undulate together—he curled away to drain her while she pressed against him so that he would not let her go. 

 My chest tightened, but I could not look away. I had no choice but to try to trace my suffering to its origin. Lucy was as lovely as I remembered, but her beauty alone seemed hollow and remote--a butterfly under glass. Dracula was masculine power incarnate, as steely and forbidding as his mountain fortress. In their embrace, they set one another aflame. His touch brought the rosiness to her cheeks, the honeyed notes to her moans and sighs. While he feasted upon her, his muscles relaxed, a sensuous haze filled his eyes, and warm undertones flooded his skin. 

The two clutched each other tighter, and my heart pounded. There was a delicious edge to the pain I felt watching them—it braced me,   forcing me awake. I realized that I ached to inhabit the spaces between them—between his lips and her throat, between their bellies, between his fingertips and the bare skin of her shoulder. I had to have them both. 

Dracula rose from Lucy and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. This startled Lucy out of her daze, and I stifled a whine at the sight of them apart. I expected to see him sated, but he still bristled with vigor and hunger. Lucy pawed at his cape but he brushed it behind him. With both hands, he grabbed the rent fabric at her bodice and ripped her gown to below her navel. Both of her breasts spilled into view, and the soft, womanly swell of her abdomen was now exposed to the light. Lucy’s mouth opened but she made no sound—she would not dare draw Arthur or Mina to this scene.

With heavy-lidded eyes, Dracula descended again, immersing himself in her throat. His hands roamed her naked flesh as he drank, cupping her breasts and tracing a line from her ribcage to her hip. Blood rushed to my loins, and I smacked my lips. Whether he did this to please himself or torture me, I did not know, but I could not stand my separation much longer. 

His touch clearly aroused Lucy, who settled deeper into her pillows as a rosy flush spread across her chest. She would have surrendered not only her throat but her whole body, should he demand it. With a dreamy smile, she turned to face me, though her eyes betrayed no awareness of my presence. She stretched one arm across the bed and revealed her milk-white wrist to me, its blue veins guiding me toward them both.

I could hear the sweet blood pulsing through those veins until my heart beat in time with their rhythm. Overcome, I sprang forward to sink my teeth into her wrist, but before I could reach her, a wave of energy hurled me against the wall beside the fireplace. I staggered to my feet and lunged again, but that invisible barrier held—I could take no more than a few steps toward the bed. Dracula did not look my way, but he raised his hand, repelling me with his open palm. 

My lust turned to panic. Through Dracula’s wall, I could still see them writhing against one another. I reached down into my trousers and grabbed my cock, desperate for release. As if to stoke my frustration, Dracula reached down past the tattered edge of Lucy’s nightdress and stroked her thigh. His hand then disappeared, and she bit down on her lip, clawing at her pillow with the hand that had once beckoned me. I massaged myself harder but knew that there would be no issue, no relief.

Though neither Lucy nor Dracula made a sound, my mind resounded with groans and purrs. In my delirium, they became a swirl of limbs and silk, skin and lace, entwined until they were indistinguishable. Then a gasp rose up from between them, and I could suddenly see them both in sharp focus. I expected to see Lucy contracted with pleasure, or coiled in horror. Instead, she lay supine as Dracula rose up from her neck, his mouth and chin streaked with blood, his shoulders quivering. His eyes rolled over until they were nearly white, and he panted in ecstasy. In so doing, he rained fuel on a fire that I could not extinguish, a fire I feared would consume me.


	3. Chapter 3

Dracula and I departed Holmwood Manor in the same sleepy silence in which we had entered. We left Lucy in a contented stupor on her bed, caressing the punctures at her throat, her bosom still bare. In the countless minutes he spent ravishing her, no footsteps sounded in the corridor, nor had a single door or floorboard creaked. Every other window remained dark—without the moonlight, the unlit mansion would have disappeared behind its verdant gardens.

Dracula kept an unhurried pace as he strode toward the back gate. He had drunk to repletion, and now a drowsiness suffused his features, a smile of sly satisfaction on his face. Meanwhile, I was frantic—my whole body burned with unfulfilled desire. I was now truly a revenant, wild with hunger, but I had no choice but to stifle my fury until we had passed beyond the wall, in case someone was lying in wait for us.

We walked toward a nearby cemetery, where family vaults comprised an elegant, ivy-festooned necropolis. We descended down a stone pathway between the mausoleums until we reached a sunken courtyard. There, Dracula took his rest on a stone bench and leaned back to gaze at the moon. 

I dared to stand directly in his view, the cold white light spilling onto my back. “Master, how long is this to go on?” I entreated him.

“As long as I see fit.”

“And when you’re done with her, then what? Will you turn her as you did me?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

I reached forward and grabbed his collar with both hands, pulling his face towards mine. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. Lucy’s perfume rose from his cheeks, mingled with his own scent.

“I exist to serve you,” I declared, “but I cannot bear this night after night. I will lose my mind.”

At such impudence, he could have flung me against one of those marble tombs. The very fact that he hesitated filled me with fresh trepidation.

“You know why you suffer now, Harker,” Dracula growled. “You forfeited your claim to Lucy when you killed my bride. You will bear witness to us until I decide her fate, and yours.”

I trembled with pleasure to hear him say her name. As he spoke, the smell of copper emanated from his mouth, intoxicating me. Unable to restrain myself, I pressed my mouth against his.  His lips parted beneath mine—no doubt in shock—and a small voice in the back of my mind cried out, fearing he might kill me. Still, I dove deeper. He tensed up but did not draw away. He tasted of blood—earth, salt, metal, life. Within it swirled his essence, the conqueror of countless lives, and hers, a lily laden with dew. I inhaled and I swallowed, taking in as much of them as I could. Then I pulled away, lingering on his muscular lips before I risked meeting his eyes.

“She and everything I once possessed belongs to you, Master,” I replied. “But I beg you, let her blood flow between us. Let my blood flow between the two of you.”

Dracula stared at me with a quizzical expression. As I expected, kings knew nothing of the agonies and delights of their pawns. He had crafted a punishment for an equal and had only unwittingly delivered one fit for a slave.

A realization kindled in his eyes. He rose up and towered over me, cruelty returning to his features. He clutched me on the shoulder and drove me to the edge of the courtyard until he had pressed me flush against a mausoleum wall. The leaves of its ivy curtain were damp and slippery against the back of my neck. He placed one hand, startlingly warm, on my throat and gripped it tight. I waited for him to raise the other and strangle me—my insolence merited nothing less.

Before I could plead for forgiveness, he closed his jaws upon my throat. I gasped, first in astonishment and then in rapture, as this exquisite sting. His pulse boomed in my ears as his blood and hers rushed tantalizingly close to his temples. I sank against him so that his heartbeat might reverberate through my whole body.

Dracula stepped back and the rush of air momentarily returned me to my senses. He then pressed down on my shoulder, forcing me to my knees. Beneath the shade of his cloak, he drew back his sleeve and exposed his wrist, a shaft of errant moonlight illuminating the two blue rivers that ran beneath his skin. I glanced up at him for permission. His look did not allow so much as dare me to drink.

I bit down and blood, still warm from Lucy’s body, flooded my mouth. Dracula and Lucy flowed through that liquid and I with them, each of us inseparable from the other. I swallowed, and the release I craved washed over my whole body. I moaned and drank deeper, giving myself over to pleasure.  Dracula did not stir—he only looked down upon me with a devilish smirk. For a moment, I wondered if this offering of his would lead to another phase of punishment. Or perhaps, I thought as I sank into blissful oblivion, it heralded new a new pact between master and slave.

 


End file.
